# Negativland made remix culture strange on purpose

> A Bay Area sound collage project became a 46-year argument for remix, fair use and art that talks back to power.
- Title: Negativland made remix culture strange on purpose · Archive
- Summary: A Bay Area sound collage project became a 46-year argument for remix, fair use and art that talks back to power. Negativland’s lasting lesson is that remix…
- Keywords: negativland, culture jamming, mark hosler, internet archive, over the edge, fair use, u2 lawsuit, sst records, kpfa, jon leidecker, don joyce, remix culture
- Source: Archive — https://blog.archive.org/2026/09/11/negativland-culture-jamming-and-the-art-of-making-something-new
- Published: 2026-09-11T18:15:35+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: negativland, culture jamming, mark hosler, internet archive, over the edge, fair use, u2 lawsuit, sst records, kpfa, jon leidecker, don joyce, remix culture
## A strange first hit
Negativland’s 1980 debut had handmade covers and sold 500 copies in three months, far beyond what the Bay Area group expected.

> We were shocked that people were interested in something so strange.
## Culture jamming begins
Over 46 years, the project grew into albums, books, radio, fine art and live shows built from found and original material.
## A remote live experiment
At the Internet Archive in San Francisco, Hosler and Jon Leidecker will perform while David Wills joins by phone from Seattle.
## Talking back to power
Hosler says the work responds to American culture, especially media, money, capitalism and control, through a warped parallel reality.

> We are always responding to and describing American culture.
## The U2 fight
A 1991 record sampling and mocking U2 led to lawsuits over copyright, trademark and defamation. Negativland settled, then used the case to argue for reform.
## Radio gets preserved
In 2015, the Internet Archive helped preserve more than 4,000 hours of Over The Edge, the freeform radio program tied to Negativland since 1981.
## No celebrity faces
The group avoids personality-driven promotion and keeps attention on the work, with a shifting circle of artists behind sound, video, web and design.

> We really want to direct attention to our work, not to us as personalities or individuals.
## For the oddballs
Hosler says the small audience was expected. The point was to invent work hard to label, for curious listeners who felt outside the outside.

> If critics can’t figure out how to talk about the work, maybe it means we actually are doing something a little bit different.
## Key takeaway

Negativland’s lasting lesson is that remix can be criticism, preservation and new art at the same time.